Veoh Networks has made available to those working as beta testers –among them Amigot Corp- their new VeohTV software that acts like a Web browser but displays only Internet video, presenting full-length television shows and popular clips from the Web’s largest video sites, like NBC.com and YouTube. It lists those videos in a program guide and plays them in a small window or across the entire screen.
Once the software is downloaded to a computer, it offers an easy-to-navigate directory of 114 video channels, including listings for CBS, NBC, Fox and YouTube. On the Fox channel, for example, there are several full-length episodes of the dramas “24” and “Bones”. Those episodes are free and available for streaming on NBC.com and Fox sites, but many customers don’t know how to find them.
Veoh does not think it needs consent to play material from those Web sites, because they are already online, including commercials shown during the programs, but networks may disagree, since Veoh omits all the others advertisements on the networks sites. Some networks and Internet companies like MySpace, AOL and MSN have already entered into commercial agreements with Veoh.
So Veoh can act as a digital video recorder, turning a video stream, meant to be viewed on the Web, into a downloaded file on a user’s hard drive. Other software, like the recently released Real Player 11, by Real Networks, can turns streaming video into downloads as well.
Dmitry Shapiro, 38-year-old Russian-born engineer CEO of Veoh Networks, and his backers (Veoh raised $26 million this summer from investors, including Time Warner, Goldman Sachs, Spark Capital and Michael D. Eisner, the former Disney chairman) are aware their product will disrupt current business models. The only problem is that before they need to make sure that having not permission to list and play other’s companies video inside VeohTV software is legal.
Widgets, a Web revolution in the making
Widgets, or is modules of software that people can drag and drop onto the personal page and blogs, are opening the door viral marketing across social networks, and Silicon Valley sees them as a Web revolution in the making. Business Week magazine dedicates an extensive article (“The Next Small Thing”) to this new phenomenon.
“Widgets could turbocharge a third phase in the Internet development,” Business Week says. Certainly widgets are giving even more power to individuals to become distributors, publishers and arbiters of content. So here we have what we can call the business of widgets.
”Television as we know is dead”, says Google
Traditional TV is pretty close to dead, Google says. “On the surface, television as we know it looks dead. But the future of television is actually pretty bright,” said Google’s head of TV Vincent Bureau at a conference dedicated to Internet.
Google went on to say that audience fragmentation and ad skipping are good, and new on-air talent should be culled from the Web. The Register wrote about it.
”Broadband viewing does not replace traditional TV”
More and more broadband users are watching streaming media online: 81 million of the 129 million broadband users in the U.S. watched TV or movies online, according to a Nielsen’s study.
This is a 16 % increase in just the last six months. The study also found that broadband viewing does not replace traditional television viewing, giving TV viewing a net audience gain.
Grouper.com turns into Crackle and switches direction
Now Grouper.com, bought last year by Sony, has a new name: Crackle. The video site is also switching direction, hopping to focus more on developing new talent and content ideas, while keeping its standard array of user-generated videos. The site will use editors to pick best content, but still rely on community voting features.
